I visited the Evergreen State College recently
where I applied for a teaching position at their Tacoma Campus. The position
description states, “The ideal candidate must have a strong background in
analysis and applied mathematics, bridging theory and practice.” The full
description is at http://www.evergreen.edu/facultyhiring/jobs/mathtacoma.htm

Would you be willing to write a letter of
reference for me? If so, you can email the letter to
facultyhiring@evergreen.edu. The subject line should be “Mathematics Tacoma
Program.”

I spent 8 days in the Washington, an evening
in Olympia at the main
campus of EvergreenState, which, you probably know,
approaches education somewhat untraditionally and innovatively. I spent three
days in Seattle, which I
love. While there, I gave a copy of my latest publication -a booklet- to some
of the faculty in philosophy at University of Washington. (There is
at least one sentence in that booklet that you would appreciate. If interested,
follow the link ‘Foundation’ from the main page of my site http://www.horizons-2000.org.)
Then, in Bellingham, I shared
the booklet with the faculty there. Nearby Bellingham is Mt.Baker, which is
awesome - even though it is only 10,777’ it has ‘the only advancing glacier in
the lower 48 states’

Hope all is well with you

Sincerely

Anil

10.23.2004

Hi Michael,

Should you write on my behalf, I wanted you to
know that...

In my application, I have not attempted to
suppress the fact that I have not been teaching since 1985 or that I work in a
completely different field –non-academic, non-educational, non-engineering,
non-mathematical– or that I have a ‘huge’ interest in philosophy: in fact I
have attempted to use the interest in philosophy as a positive point

The point is that you should not feel any need
to suppress anything or, more importantly, think that I am expecting you to do
so

Sincerely,

Anil

10.25.2004

Hi Anil...

I’ll be glad to send a reference letter. I’d
need to base it on the time that you spent here though, since that’s the only
first-hand info I could supply (that they couldn’t find for themselves in your
supplied info). All’s well here. Mechanical Engineering at University of Delaware is
expanding in the bio area and the related areas of robotics and controls. The
environment is now much more heavily research money oriented than it used to
be. Best, M. PS Have you read any of Ravi Zacharias? If so, do you have any
feedback on it?

Best,

M.

10.25.2004

Hi Michael,

It is good to hear from you... and thanks for
being willing to write a reference. Of course, no problem with basing it on
what you know first hand - I would not expect otherwise

I did not know who Ravi Zacharias is but I just
looked him up on the Internet. My personal approach when looking at something
new is a combination of interest, hope for something enlightening, and
openness. Openness is double edged because it means openness to truth as well
as error in what is being said. My first impression is that there is an obvious
truth content. “The weakness of modern intellectual movements.” “You will know
the truth...” and “...the truth will set you free.” “The credibility of the
Christian message.” To me, the message has at least two parts. Faith - “He died
for our sins.” “He is risen from the dead.” Messages that I take from the
articles of faith: he died for truth... and “rising from the dead?” speaks to
the power present in the world and denied or ignored by the allegedly rational
minded. The second part, the human message: “blessed are the...” and “love thy
neighbor...” examine “the beam in your eye” ... and the message about who might
“cast the first stone” ... all wonderful

I reorganized the home page to my site, http://www.horizons-2000.org,
and the link I may have mentioned in my previous message is now near the top
left “Journey in Being: Foundation.” The document itself is relatively short
but still too long for its content. Anyway, it addresses a number of the issues
noted above: faith, the possibilities and limits of thought... And somewhere in
there you will find the sentence “Jesus Christ has risen from the dead obtains
in countless cosmologies.” Not much point droning on here... the document
itself explains my meaning and the significance that I see in the meaning.
There is much more that might interest you... I might be arrogant but I do
think that there is some truly fundamental material in the document. Two points
- the essay is under revision since I had a number of ideas for improvement of
it on my vacation and, second, my entire site views much better with the latest
version of Internet Explorer than other browsers

Take care

Anil

11.8.2004

Hi Anil,

Just to let you know that I sent a
recommendation last week and have received confirmation of its receipt. Won’t
have a chance to look over your web material till I think next week...

Best,

M.

11.10.2004

Hi Anil,

I looked over your web site and read your
e-mail, and would like to share some thoughts and raise some questions and
ideas that you might want to consider. You may be right about the fundamental
material in your document - I’m not qualified about that.

By the way, I mentioned Ravi Zacharias for a
couple of reasons. He grew up in India, I think within Hindu tradition, so I
would guess that he has the same (or similar) cultural background that you do,
he is a philosopher, and also because he writes and speaks so beautifully that
one is hard pressed to put down his writing once we start reading it. For
instance, I’d highly recommend “Jesus Among Other Gods” by him.

Thinking about your words about Jesus, here are
some ideas:

Jesus (who claimed to be one and the same as
the Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, namely, the God of the Jewish Bible,
is entirely about relationships. When asked (by those trying to trip him up)
what the greatest commandment was, he responded that the two greatest are to
love the Lord thy God with all one’s heart, mind, and soul, and also to do unto
others as one would have them do unto us; he said the whole law given through
Moses hangs on these two. (Later, he gave what he called a new commandment - to
go even further, to love even one’s enemies.)

I’ve possibly missed it, but I don’t see
relationships in your work - or at least as prominent in it - but rather the
concept of self. The focus of Jesus and the entire Bible is God and our
relationship with him, not self. The commandment was to “love the Lord thy God
with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” One can
hear that as a one-way commandment, but I hear it as two way, for how can we
love him who we don’t know? So God was promising to be a near God, God
“Immanuel”, who could be known intimately by us just as we are known intimately
by him. That indeed is my experience of him, of Jesus. The relationships in my
life that tower now above all else are my relationship with Jesus first, and
with my wife Yisraela second.

Anil, let me share a little about that. I first
found the Lord through Yisraela, who was a friend of mine back then. You know
the image, in Snoopy, of Pigpen who walked around in a cloud of dust? Well, all
I can say is that I saw Yisraela as walking in a cloud of miracles. She didn’t
talk about them much, and I didn’t ask questions, but I could see them from the
outside.

One time, she was moving from one place in Newark to another,
and had some heavy things to move - so I went over to help. We were leaving a
room and I moved to hit the light switch off and she said NO, don’t... but it
was too late, I had already done it. The reason she didn’t want me to was that
it was a VERY old house and was on only one circuit, so if there was a short
then the electricity went off throughout the house. There was a short in that light
switch and she’d turned it off a few weeks ago (this was winter) and lost all
power. The problem was not that she couldn’t restore it, but that she didn’t
have money for an oil fill up so the oil level (for the oil burner) was very
low, and because it was low she had trouble re-starting the heater and had to
spend $50 for a service call; she didn’t want to have to spend another $50.

So, I said to her ... “Well, you could pray
about that...” (Not very nice of me.) We grabbed a flashlight and while we headed
for the basement she asked the Lord to not let the oil burner go off - not
“fancy” praying, as I’d known growing up in Judaism, just a sentence or two as
though talking to a person. We got to the basement and, though there was no
power anywhere else in the house, the oil burner electric motor was still
running. No, I didn’t “fall down and worship,” as they say, but I did store it
in the I-don’t-understand file. But I did start asking her some questions about
this “Lord” and she answered them. She even shared scriptures from the Bible,
written long before Jesus, that prophesized of his coming - he’d be born in
Bethlehem, of a virgin, would live in order to die for us - to pay the fine
that is owed by us - would be born at a certain time, from a certain tribal and
family lineage, and so on, there being about 300 such in the Bible. Anyway, I
read what she gave me but simply didn’t understand the words, even though with
hindsight I can see that they were quite plain.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t about “understanding” or
knowledge, but about something that was happening in the spiritual domain, and
I did “ask Jesus to come into my heart”, as Yisraela had told me was the step
that she had taken. The faith that you mentioned was operating here, if only -
faith in Yisraela, for the issue was simple: if she was a reliable witness,
then these things - whether I understood them or not - were true; conversely if
she were not a reliable witness. Based on my knowledge of her I was clear that
she was indeed reliable and I stepped out - really “in faith.” But what happens
next is that Jesus does indeed deliver on his promises to come inside us and
dine with us. He also “moves the furniture around” and my life, my desires, the
big things in my life are now different. For instance, I always loved art and
my ideal was to own art and have a home that was a museum. Now I still love art
- but that exists within a larger and greater context rather than being the
context itself.

Jesus spoke of wanting us to come to him not as
lawyers but as little children, and that is surely how I came. But he doesn’t
keep us as little children, and he didn’t give us good minds so that we should
be stupid. As the Lord tells us in Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together...”.
And as Jesus told Thomas who, when meeting Jesus after the resurrection,
expressed his doubts, Jesus responded “Reach your finger here and look at my
hands; and reach your hand here and put it into my side” [these were where his
body had been pierced] “And Thomas answered and said to him, ‘My Lord and my
God.’” (John 20:27). (Zacharias writes that Thomas later went to India to preach
the gospel and died there doing that.)

Just as those writers noted that they couldn’t
possibly write of all the things and miracles that Jesus did, likewise I
couldn’t begin to write about all that he has done in my life, in Yisraela’s,
and in the lives of those we know. But let me tell just a few things to give an
idea.

Jesus had told Yisraela, back around that time,
that he would bring a husband to her (she was a single mother). (He had also
told her I would be “saved” - a month before it happened.) She responded to him
that she didn’t WANT to be married again, but in any case she had no idea that
the Lord meant me. Well, when I did ask her to marry me she said yes, but had
reservations (though she didn’t share them with me then). For she was concerned
since her “husband” during those years had been the Lord, and if she married
me, a new believer and immature in these things, and the husband is, in God’s
economy, to be the head of the household, then in a sense she could lose the
sort of relationship that she had with the Lord if I weren’t up to the task.
Now, we were having around a dozen friends over to do a ritual betrothal
ceremony (Remember that Joseph was “betrothed” to Mary when she was found
pregnant? Betrothal is like engagement, but deeper since there is not to be any
turning back from that point.) Within the ceremony the bridegroom-to-be drinks
a cup of wine. Now, the problem is that I was having an enlarged prostate and
even a thimble full of red wine was enough to completely prevent urination -
not forever, but for enough hours for it to be painful in the extreme. And
Yisraela knew about that. Nonetheless, what does she do? Instead of giving me
just a “ceremonial” amount of wine she gave me - truly - the equivalent of a
water glass full. All I can say is that it didn’t seem appropriate to question
the amount of the wine and I drank it all (and then awaited the results!). The
next day she asked me how I was doing and I told her that it was quite
remarkable, that not only didn’t it “kill me dead”; now the condition was even
gone!! And it stayed like that for almost two weeks, when it returned (which I
was aware of not because I continued to drink glasses of red wine but because
there were many foods that triggered it to various degrees). Well, she asked
again, around then, how I was doing, and I told her that it seemed to have
returned. She then shared with me about how she was so concerned about marrying
me and losing her relationship with the Lord, so she had gone to him and asked
him to make it clear to her that the one he intended for her was me. She told
him she would give me the wine, and if I were the one, then he should please
keep me from having any ill effects. But even after I drank and indeed
experienced no ill effects (but rather a healing of the condition!), she went
back to the Lord (she’s unusual Anil) and said essentially, Lord, I want to be
100% sure, so if Michael is the one then give him the condition back again.
(Yikes!) He did, and she was convinced.

Anil, this is what the Lord is like, and no
closer loving friend could one have. That first year or so, around when we got
married, was just incredible. The Lord was working in our lives in such ways
that it would take a small book to describe it all. The oil-burner event was a
true miracle in that one could not explain it as coincidence or as any other
working of the laws of nature. But the things that I love much more are the
more intimate ways he works with us.

For instance, and I really love this one, my
Dad had great trouble first with my earlier divorce, and then with his son
losing his mind and believing in Jesus, the “captain of the other team” as
Jewish people usually see him. So our relationship was strained to say the
least. Nevertheless, he did tell us, one time, that he would come and visit,
for a Thursday Thanksgiving dinner. So now, Wed night we’re getting ready for
his visit. Yisraela’s style is to go to great lengths at times like that, and
indeed she literally didn’t go to bed that night at all, getting ready and
preparing his room, etc. It was hard for me to help her because my standards
(in cleaning for instance) are not very high. But I pleaded with her to give me
some things I could do to help her. She said OK, go to the supermarket and get
such and such, and then go to the laundry and wash and dry a certain quilt
because it was cold in the house at night and we didn’t have enough blankets
for us and my father without that quilt. Great. I went to the supermarket and
got that done, only to come out and find that for the first and only time in my
life I’d locked my keys in the car. By the time I got into the car it was
around 9:10pm, the Laundromats closed at 10pm, and they would be closed the
next day (Thanksgiving), and since a quilt is heavy it takes many drying cycles
to dry it, and Yisraela had asked me to be certain it was completely dry or it
would be of no use. So, I gave up and drove home, telling her I’d done one but not
the other. Her response was a classic and I love her so much if only for that
response: she said, “Go back and start it.” Figure it out Anil, an impossible
task and she says go back and start it.

I must back up a bit here to give the
background. Sometime before that my Dad was selling his home in Connecticut and wanted
me to take a large and tremendously heavy bookcase (he had it made and was told
it would be teak, but evidently the carpenter gave him particle board instead -
which is very heavy). I didn’t like the piece and didn’t know how we could get
it even if we wanted it, but Yisraela said - he wants you to have it so we will
go get it. OK, we borrow a friend’s station wagon (to tie the piece on top of)
and drive up to CONN. The two of us were able to get the piece, by pivoting it
on one leg at a time, to the front door and out, and eventually next to the car
in the driveway - which was around 50 ft long. But how to lift it onto the roof
of the car? It was so heavy that it would have taken two moving men or four
normal people, and there was no one around out there in the country, and we
didn’t know the neighbors. So I say to her something like “Now what?” Her
response was “Bend down and start lifting it.” You have to understand
that we absolutely could not lift it, and here she’s saying bend down and lift
start lifting it. So I did that, and just as I was tightening my muscles to
give it my best shot we hear “Can we help?” from two people who had come up our
driveway and were now standing at our side such that we couldn’t see them -
till we turned as they spoke. So with their help we did put it up and headed
home, and got 4 people to get it up to the second floor. So, anyway, when
Yisraela said Go back and start it, I “got it” and headed right back to the
Laundromat.

More problems: I start the washer and when it
should be rinsing now it’s soaping! Defeated. I tell the girl there and she
says “That’s funny, it worked all day.” I return to watch the quilt be soaped
and she comes back in 5 minutes (it’s now around 9:30 and any dreams of many
drying cycles have long since vanished) and she tells me that she called the
owner and the owner is coming in the next day to do some things (even though
the Laundromat wouldn’t be open then) and if I left the quilt she would do it
in the morning and I could pick it up. So she did and I did. When I picked it
up she said “you know that’s funny because that machine seems to be working
fine.”

How do I know it was the Lord who did that? For
one thing is he never let me down - before that or after. Also, he works with
each one of us uniquely. What he had been doing with me in particular was
giving me confirmations, through other people just before he did something for
me, and then again just after it. But what I love so much about this particular
event is that it was so consistent with his character. In the “wisdom of the
world” the way to get the job done would have bee to get the machine to work
better and faster, as I was thinking, but the way he did it was to break the machine....
just as Jesus was broken on the cross for you and me. What looked to his
disciples to be the greatest of defeats was the greatest of victories.

Anil, the bottom line in the Bible, made clear
even in Genesis upon the fall of man through Adam, was that we cannot cover,
annul, or cancel our sins by our own works, and that God’s nature is such that
he cannot abide amidst sin - one sin or many, small or large, it doesn’t
matter. To understand his point of view we can go to the first occurrence of
sin and see his response. Adam and Eve now know they are naked and try to cover
themselves with fig leaves. God enlists the physical to explain to us the
spiritual. In this case, we can imagine the futility of sewn fig leaves as a
covering. Rather, God then clothes them in animal skins. Now, realize Genesis
makes clear that there was no death before in the creation until that point;
all the animals and Adam and Eve were to be vegetarians. Thus, the point is
that Adam and Eve couldn’t cover themselves, only God could, and the covering
involved the substitutionary death of innocent blood - those animals. One can
imagine that it must have been a terrible sight for Adam and Eve. As the Bible
continues, that formula of blood sacrifice is established in very great detail.
In Leviticus 17:11 the Lord tells us that “the life of the flesh is in
the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your
souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

Thus, the idea is that sin leads to death
(spiritual, is really the point) and if it is not to be the death of the guilty
one then it is to be the stand-in death of one who is blameless.

The pre-Jesus Bible makes it clear that God
himself would take on flesh to come down, and be the sinless sacrifice for us,
to cover our sins past, present and future and to thereby restore us into the
relationship the he wants with us and for which he created us. (Sure enough,
after Jesus, the Temple was destroyed in 70ad and the
sacrificial system was to disappear. Of course -- it was no longer needed.)

We strive for this and for that and yet the
greatest thing imaginable is a free gift that we need merely accept. How much
like a loving father, to pay the price himself because we could not do it
ourselves. In the world the people die for the king, but in the kingdom of God the king
dies for his people.

You mentioned the resurrection and its truth or
falsity. There’s a large literature on this. For instance, former Supreme Court
Justice Brewer said “The existing evidence of Christ’s resurrection is
satisfactory to me. I have not examined it from the legal standpoint but
Greenleaf has done so and he is the highest authority on evidence cited in the
courts.” Simon Greenleaf was a chaired professor, the Royal Professor of Law at
Harvard in the 19th century, and he and one colleague made the Harvard Law
School great; his specialty was evidence - what constitutes evidence, how to
test it, etc., and it is he who is cited in the courts. He wrote on the
resurrection and the upshot is that the physical resurrection of Jesus is as
well established a historical fact as anything from that time period.

I’ll share a mathematical point of view. When I
was working on propeller theory a long time ago I had a singular nonlinear
integral equation for a vortex density function, on 0 < x < infinity. I
was using a collocation scheme and looking for a solution as a linear
combination of various negative-exponential functions. To my dismay, the more
collocation points I used the worse things got, with the output oscillating
wildly with x. Then I finally realized from the form of the integral equation
that the unknown had a square root singularity at the origin so I built that
behavior into my solution form and, bang, the (iterative solution) converged
beautifully and quickly. It may sound silly, but I believe the Lord did that to
show me something: for the Bible is like that - without Jesus postulated the
Jewish Bible makes little sense, is contradictory, etc. But if one - even
tentatively - postulates the truth of Jesus then all the pieces fit and it is a
most miraculous document.

So, I’ve shared with you not logic or
philosophy but my experience of the Lord (the Lord who loves you as much as
me). As Paul said in 1 Corinthians (1:19-25): “For it is written, ‘I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of
the prudent’, Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of
this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the
wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God
through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For
Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ
crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to
those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the
weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Let me ask you another question - Why is the
world (universe) beautiful (before we invented telephone poles)? Did it just
turn out that way? How can we explain the beauty of a little bird or a
grasshopper with such long and skinny legs that we wonder what sort of knees it
has or what mechanisms are at work that enable it to bend its leg? Or was it a
gift from our Father who made a place for us that was wonderful beyond
comprehension? And why are our central nervous systems designed so that we FIND
beauty in the universe, for a dog probably does not. Anil, read Proverbs
8:12-36. It is ostensibly about wisdom, but scripture often has a second
meaning and I suggest that the one who is speaking, through Solomon, is not
“wisdom” but Jesus. (Compare those scriptures with the opening of the Gospel of
John.) When you come to verse 31 you will know about his love for us all and
the purpose of his creation: “And my delight was with the sons of man.” The
purpose of his creation was us, for him to love us and fellowship with us, to
be in intimate relationship with each of us.

You mention things Jesus said that you like.
But realize that you can’t take some of him and discard the rest. He also spoke
at length about judgment and hell (though his mission on that occasion was not
judgment but to die for us and, by his blood, to seal the new covenant that was
promised to us in Jeremiah 31:31-34). The same Jesus as you quoted also said:
“I did not come to bring peace but a sword. [The sword meaning the truth] For I
have come to set a man against his father [I can attest to the truth of that],
a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who
loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39) This was no
peacenik out of the 60s, and it’s interesting to imagine the scene of him throwing
the moneychangers out of the Temple because they had set up a market
therein.

He also issued a challenge to you and to all
who seek the truth: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
father except through me.” (John 14:6) “... to him who asks it will be opened”
(Matthew 7:8) “Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the
way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew
8:14)

He does not say there are many ways and
“howsoever”, he says he is the only way and there are no others that lead to
life, but only to destruction. And he promises to answer your questions, to
open it up to you, if you go to him and ask. I guarantee he will do that.

So, I don’t know if I’ve succeeded in exceeding
the length of your Introduction, but at least I gave it a shot.

Best,

Michael

11.10.2004

Hi Michael

I was planning on sending you an email when I
received your relatively long note... I am going to have to read and absorb it
before I respond. Meanwhile, thanks for sending off the reference to Evergreen

I have used Microsoft software in producing my
site, writing the html from scratch would be time consuming and detract from
the content which is my main focus... so – the site is best viewed using a
recent version of Internet Explorer

The document ‘Foundation,’ that I suggested
that you look at is somewhat analytical in its nature though not in its
motivation. My comments on actual belief as revealed or otherwise were
introduced as illustrative. That does not mean that I am not intrinsically
interested in the material but only that it was not the initial focus of
‘Foundation’

I had planned the current version to be the
last version until I made some changes [job etc.] but had a number of ideas on
my vacation. However, since ‘Foundation’ is the latest statement in the
progression of my thought, though not at all the most complete, it is
imperative that I introduce the new ideas – some having to do with the
foundations and others with its presentation. The concept of faith and thoughts
on actual faith are among the ideas... Of course, to do the whole thing justice
would require more space, more experience and more thought than I am currently
able to devote

Somehow, I can never quite seem to settle on a
final system of understanding, knowledge and belief. I find myself, with regard
to that and with regard to other aspects of myself, a little split – being in
one state or another. ‘Foundation’ comes closest, so far, to an integration of
faith and reason... in which, I think I have found, and that is not to suggest
that no one else has done so, an integration of faith and reason in which the
two are not in conflict

‘Foundation’ represents, I think, a milestone
in the knowledge phase of what I have been calling ‘My Journey.’ Next, I want
to experiment with feeling, intuition, and, perhaps, faith. [The usefulness, to
me, of my being at mental health, here, seems to have come to and end. This is
why I have decided to try to move on. My first choice would be a place where I
would be involved in furthering the Journey; teaching, research in engineering
/ math... is my second choice]

I’ll end here and will be in touch after I have
read your email

Before I forget... I always enjoyed your
teaching and breadth of knowledge in math, and I still value the freedom that I
enjoyed as your advisee at Delaware

Sincerely,

Anil

11.16.2004

Hi Anil,

Anil, I reread my e-mail to you and it felt a
little harsh at the beginning. I didn’t intend it to and am real sorry if it
sounds that way to you. If so, please forgive me

M.

11.16.2004

Hi Michael,

No... I didn’t feel that you were being harsh.
Rather, I felt you were being enthusiastic and persuasive about something that
means a lot to you. It seems clear to me that everything you wrote is well
intended. Additionally, your caring comes through. At the same time, as you
said, ‘truth is a sword’ and it is not possible to tell the truth - one’s truth
- without coming into disagreement with others...

Something culturally interesting: in mainstream
American culture it is not considered cool to be argumentative. Instead,
everyone maintains cool and in a group setting everyone speaks in turn.
Apparently it is not like that in France where
everyone talks passionately and interrupting and anger / passion is not thought
to be un-cool. I’ve read that the Jewish culture in New York is
something like that. The culture that I come from is also like that...

I don’t remember how much I shared with you of
my background. My mother was British [mostly Welsh, some Irish] and brought up
Christian; my Dad said that he was ‘atheist’ and had been brought up in a Hindu
environment. My mom would go to occasional Christian services and I would
sometimes go with her. My dad would go to the local Hindu festivals that
included worship. He was not a believer but went because he wanted to be part
of the community - and wanted his children to experience the local culture. At
home, there was no professed faith and no one was required to believe anything
in the religious or spiritual dimension. Honesty, respecting one’s elders was
important as was hard work. Anyway, so I did not grow up in any faith. I went
to Catholic school because the Jesuits provide the best education in India. We were
exposed to Christianity - Roman Catholicism and had ‘ethics’ classes whose
content would depend on the temperament of the Jesuit teacher - some were
fundamentalist, ‘dogmatic’; others were liberal and used ‘ethics’ as an
opportunity to impart an open world view. It has been said that Hinduism is an
umbrella for all kinds of beliefs. That is not true at the local level where
the rituals, beliefs and deities are specific and concrete. However, it is
rather true of Indian - Hindu - philosophy as a whole. I was not exposed to
much of that explicitly but must have absorbed something of the Hindu
philosophical sentiment just as a result of living in the culture. Most of what
I know of Indian philosophy has been learnt since coming to the US

I have been thinking about a response to your
email. Today is my first day off from work since I read it. If I have time I
will respond later today. Working 40 hours a week on something that is not my
main interest results in time budget problems

Sincerely,

Anil

11.16.2004

Hi Anil,

Thanks for putting my concern to rest. About
the cultural differences in disagreements etc, a photo in the Jerusalem Post
last week came to mind - from the Knesset, showing three members. One was
obviously shouting heatedly, the guy in the seat in front of and below him was
trying to duck the barrage and had his hands over his ears, and the guy next to
the one leaning forward and (obviously) shouting was trying to catch a nap. It
said a lot about the culture.

Best,

M

11.21.2004

Hi Michael,

The purposes of this note include the following. I want,
first of all, to thank you for the personal disclosure of your ‘long’ email. In
addition to simple appreciation, I want to say that your thoughts are valuable
to the development of my thought. I also want to share a little of my history
with you. Finally I want to see what mesh there may be between my thought and
the literal interpretation of religious scriptures and to see what relation
there may be between ‘literal content’ and ‘message.’ I think I have found that
there is some mesh and certainly no absolute rational ground –as the secular
rationalists would have it– for rejection or dismissal of the literal
interpretation. Even though, perhaps especially because, the mesh between your
thought and mine is only partial, your contribution is useful – because
thinking about conflicting ideas may result in clarification and because it is
good for me to have doubts raised about the validity of my thought

The first paragraphs are repetition from emails I sent you: I don’t
remember how much I shared with you of my background. My mother was British
[mostly Welsh, some Irish] and brought up Christian; my dad said that he was
‘atheist’ and had been brought up in a Hindu environment. My mom would go to
occasional Christian services and I would sometimes go with her. My dad would
go to the local Hindu festivals that included worship. He was not a believer
but went because he wanted to be part of the community - and wanted his
children to experience the local culture. At home, there was no professed faith
and no one was required to believe anything in the religious or spiritual
dimension. Honesty, respecting one’s elders was important as was hard work.
Anyway, so I did not grow up in any faith. I went to Catholic school because
the Jesuits provided some of the best education in India. We were
exposed to Christianity - Roman Catholicism and had ‘ethics’ classes whose
content would depend on the temperament of the Jesuit Instructor – some were
fundamentalist, ‘dogmatic’; others were liberal and used ‘ethics’ as an
opportunity to impart an open world view. It has been said that Hinduism is an
umbrella for all kinds of beliefs. That is not true at the local level where
the rituals, beliefs and deities are specific and concrete. However, it is rather
true of Indian –Hindu– philosophy as a whole. I was not exposed to much of that
explicitly but must have absorbed something of the Hindu philosophical
sentiment just as a result of living in the culture. Most of what I know of
Indian philosophy has been learnt since coming to the US

…In mainstream American culture it is often not considered
proper to be argumentative. Instead, everyone maintains cool and in a group
setting everyone speaks in turn. Being argumentative is sometimes thought of as
a sign of weakness. It is not like that in many other cultures. Apparently, in France –at least
in some circles– everyone talks passionately and interruption and heated
passion is thought to be a sign of involvement and commitment rather than
weakness. I’ve read that the Jewish culture in New York is
something like that. The culture that I come from is also like that...

The following paragraphs are new: … people
from Indiado tend
to be passionate in discussions but the culture that I referred to and that
I came from is the Bengali culture from the east of India –the state
of West
Bengal–
and Bangladesh. The
Bengalis are especially passionate in talking of their interests which, among
the educated, include politics, ideas and art. Educated Bengalis, especially
men, tend to be critical of religion and frequently note the destruction in the
name of religion. [I think] there is power in religion and humans will use
instruments of power to further their goals – thus the fault is not in religion
except when ‘religion’ explicitly encourages what is wrong. The examples of
Stalin and Hitler –and even of capitalism– heighten our awareness that anything
can be used as a pretext for use of power to destructive goals

As a Bengali, I’m not altogether typical since I tend to keep
and nurture my passion within myself but I am comfortable with people being
committed to and animated about their ideals. As long as I remember, I have had
difficulty with things that I have not been passionate about. I.e. for me,
things are not merely more or less passionate but range from extremely dull to
passionate. I suppose everyone might be like that but I think it is especially
pronounced in me. I think of that as a fact and not good or bad or better or
worse… It is one factor that has ‘interfered’ with what may have otherwise been
the normal progression of my education and career

[I think of work, especially hard work, without passion, without
reflection, without direction as evil, as self-perpetuating without reason, as
destructive of the good and of appreciation of what is beautiful and good]

A little more of my history… Although the name is relatively
recent, my ‘journey’ goes back a long time, explicitly to my time in Newark but
as a vague unnamed thing to some time in my teens or even earlier. Around 1983,
I had something of a coherent philosophy and made a decision to develop that
philosophy without knowing where that would lead. I took some years off from
work, 1985 – 1989, and by 1987 had developed the philosophy into ‘Notes on Evolution and Design.’ Evolution was the guiding
paradigm and I understood it in a scientific context which meant that material
things were the only real things. I did not believe that but it was a useful
place from which to work and much of my thinking was characterized by a un- or
anti-dogmatic attitude and I have attempted to be un-judgmental in matters of
theory and fact [except, for example, as an arrogant teenager when my mother
–talented but uneducated in science– would talk of ‘non-sensory and
non-material vibrations between people,’ I would be amused at her ‘primitive’
views.] Specifically, it seemed obvious that the traditional realm and methods
of science were obviously and woefully incomplete if science pretended
to represent the limit of even human knowledge and possibility. Of
course, to make positive assertions and to do things –to act– one must make
judgments. However, the question of dogma is one of one’s attitudes to
one’s judgments… The evolutionary, rather mechanistic paradigm of ‘Evolution
and Design’ had a number of loose ends. These included the nature and origin of
consciousness –which contains the question of beauty– and vague questions about
the place of the individual –specifically about me but not only about me and my
awareness– in the ‘infinity of being.’ The corresponding intuition was that,
while the modern secular paradigm is that of the individual as a lonely
isolated accident, I did not feel either lonely or an accident. [This is my
general bearing I think and does not mean that I don’t have the usual reactions
to life’s events such as loss of someone one loves.] I also felt discomfort
with the positivist attitude – if it isn’t known to or in science, it doesn’t
exist or the less extreme version in which it should not be mentioned – that
often goes along with [the ‘official’ version of] science but is not at all
entailed by science or even the complete history of its institutional structure
[I say that because Thomas Kuhn would have said that it is entailed by the
institutional structure]

[I am not so sure of the ‘limitations’ of science anymore.
Obviously, the science taught in universities cannot pretend to completeness
with regard to human knowledge. However, what I question is the boundary
between science and non-science]

Looking back over notes that I have kept –on my computer’s hard
drive and on the internet so that I don’t have to maintain paper copies– I can
see a progression in which I was trying to articulate the intuition. One
question I asked was ‘What is the nature of death?’ The secular, existentialist
view is that there is absolutely nothing after death. The typical existential
stance is that this is frightening, but I [the existentialist] face it with
courage [which makes me, the existentialist, proud – even though I don’t say
so] and it is the source of anxiety regarding life and death that is the spur
of my creative impulse… I’ve never felt particularly afraid of death –I haven’t
analyzed that adequately to have an explanation, perhaps I’m not as sensitive
as the existentialists– but do occasionally feel concern about the inexorable
process of dissolution and decay that is old age. Now that I’m thinking about it
I wonder whether fear is the natural human condition. I have thought that
people living in natural environments must, naturally, feel ongoing fear in the
face of the unpredictable elements. However, we don’t necessarily feel fear
every time we drive on the highway. Perhaps, then, the fear of the modern
existentialist is that of having grown up in some kind of faith to see the
foundation of that faith [allegedly] destroyed by science and reason. That
outcome is due, perhaps, to abortive thinking. Science does not actually
destroy the foundation but only seems to do so. Before the existentialist
completes the cycle of thought he or she comes up with a defense – anxiety
courage creativity – and the defense and abortive thought pattern are mutually
sustaining. An example is the ‘finality’ of death. Secular minded people are
proud of their conclusion ‘there is nothing after death.’ Perhaps they are
proud of their courage and the superiority of their thought over the thought of
those who they may think of as spiritually oriented and ‘weak minded.’ Such
people do not stop to consider that they have never –as far as they know– met
anyone who has been dead or been dead themselves and so their belief, far from
being logically necessary, is an unnecessary encumbrance of their paradigms of
thought. Anyway, I am speculating that my relative indifference to ‘existential
angst’ and my relatively un-dogmatic nature [though perhaps I’m deceiving
myself] have something to do with the environment in which I grew up and
described in my earlier email… that is not a complete explanation since my
brother, Robin, is unlike me in this aspect of life

The other idea that I toyed with is ‘nothingness’ also referred
to as the ‘void’ and which I may start to call ‘absence’ because that word comes
closer than the others to describing the concept. The void creeps in to much of
religious and philosophical thought – from antiquity. However, my use of the
void, as it would turn out, is different from anything that I have read. One of
the factors in my thought was the fact that matter coming into existence from
nothing need not violate conservation of energy since the positive energy of
matter –emcee squared– may be balanced by the negative energy of the
gravitational field. Although this is not a foundation, it encouraged my
thought on the void but for quite a while the idea that the entire universe was
equivalent to the void was, for me, somewhere between wishful thinking and an
article of faith with, perhaps, a trace of logic. I tried to show or think how
the universe may be equivalent to nothingness. In 2002, I had the thought:
instead of the focus on being or the universe, focus on nothingness itself and
its nature. The key thought is that nothingness is not merely the absence of
things but also of laws i.e. of what we think of as necessity. For, to imagine
that we can take away things [in imagination] without taking away laws is to
think that the laws came before things. In a state of nothingness, there can be
no restriction of possibility for a state that includes restriction is not a
state of nothingness. The result is that the void is equivalent to the entire
universe. To continue the development would be to repeat what I have already
written. Some conclusions are that ‘what is not contradictory is possible’ and
‘what is possible is materially necessary.’ [Logical necessity is whatever must
‘always’ obtain, material necessity is what must occasionally obtain. Hence the
statement about Jesus Christ which was partly motivated in feeling and also motivated
as an ‘in your face’ statement for the radical secular rationalists.] Other
conclusions: recurrence – a favorite theme of Nietzsche who thought of
recurrence as necessary and as occurring in time. I think of recurrence as in
time but also in extension… but there’s more, since whatever is possible is
materially necessary, individuals are parts of ‘higher being.’ And it is in
this participation that there can be a meaning to ‘individual life’ that
transcends the individual – somewhere I came up with the fancy name ‘The
Principle of Ontological Psychology’ for this transcendence and the motivation
to it although I later changed it to the more subdued ‘Principle of Meaning’…
and somewhere in there is ‘relationship.’ The participation in ‘higher being’ has
the following additional consequences: provision of some meaning for this life,
effect of action in this life upon a next life, the nature of relationship
among beings and between being and BEING.
That sounds a little bit like karma but it is not a deterministic, not a moral,
not strict, and –most certainly– not a universal version of karma. One further
conclusion: from the ‘principle’ of material necessity: our corner of the
universe is an infinitesimal part of the whole – it is a coherent phase-epoch of
the whole [which cannot be the whole if God is outside it]

Does the void exist? Consider any part of the universe. Its
complement exists. The complement of the universe itself is the void which,
therefore, exists. The point is, perhaps, debatable. For this point, I have to
refer you, at present to the discussions of ‘existence’ in the literature [the Cambridge
Companion to Metaphysics is a start even though I do not agree with the
position taken there] and in my writing on the Internet: in Foundation and in the much longer and already dated Journey in
Being

There is a discussion in the literature, tangential to what is
being said here, regarding the number of voids that there are. Some authors
claim that there is one, others that there are many. Of course, there must be
some who claim that there are not any but I haven’t yet come across this claim
in the literature. I don’t think that the outcome of this debate is
consequential since many voids are equivalent to one void – this follows from
the ‘properties’ of the void. What is a little more consequential is that one
may think of a void as being attached to any being or particle since the
complement of a particle relative to itself is the, or a, void it follows that
a particle is equivalent to the particle to which the void is attached. Written
in equation form, particle - itself = void and, so, particle = particle
+ void. So, from the properties of the void it follows that every
element of the universe is capable of self-annihilation. This sounds
quantum-mechanical but is not derived from that theory. It also follows that
every element is equivalent to every other

I admit that I wonder –at times– about the validity of the
foregoing thoughts. My approach to the underlying logic was circuitous but the
final statement of the essential properties of the void is so simple and appears
to negate so much common sense and so much science that I have wonder about
validity. The explanation of the apparently paradoxical nature is that we live
in a coherent phase-epoch of the universe. It is part of the condition of
becoming from the void [details in other documents] that whatever has relative
permanence also has symmetry and structure – though not perfect symmetry.
Therefore, while the elements are self-annihilating and while every element is
equivalent to every other the realization of these truths as facts in our phase-epoch
is improbable. Science describes normal behavior in this coherent phase
of the universe. That is, exceptions to normal behavior are possible –though
normally unlikely– and, beyond our coherent phase, our science does not have
universal application. Also implied by the argument is the ‘fact’ that behind
the apparent concreteness or solidity or reality of the experienced world is a
‘virtual’ world – not, however, as in virtual reality – or a ‘ghost’ world
always ready to interact but not often interacting, at least at our level of
being, with our phase. Perhaps hidden in the argument is the fact that two
slightly different concepts of the void have been identified but the previous
paragraph provides some justification for the identification

Regarding the existence of the void and its properties as a
hypothesis, the hypothesis is equivalent to a statement of the following form:
the only universal law is the essential law of logic. I have not yet quite
formulated what that law must be but I am inclined to equating it to the ‘law
of contradiction’ that the only impossibilities are those that are logically
impossible [je: thanks] or its converse that whatever is not a contradiction is
necessary. At least one part of the theory of the void is tautologous to the
law of contradiction and I have not yet analyzed whether that extends to the
whole theory of the void which may not be difficult when I get around to it

[A question. If God is that being that has no limits and if
logic is what is universally necessary, are not logic and the law of God the
same?]

The introduction to Foundation does not emphasize ‘relationship.’ However,
relationship is in there, especially in the division labeled ‘A Map of the
Journey’ or, in the August and September text editions, ‘A Sketch of
Essentials.’ This was one of the original motives of the journey ‘the relation
between the individual and the universal…’ One interesting issue is the interpretation
of ‘relationship’ that results from the ‘THEORY
OF BEING’ just outlined which implies a fluid character to the nature of
the individual. Since the individual is seen as fluid, relationship results
from transformation or ‘morphing’ in addition to ‘seeking.’ Or, we are already
in God, but may be ignorant of our status

One of the thoughts I had in writing was ‘how can I reconcile
Michael’s thinking with mine.’ Naturally, I do not expect that you will think
that my effort at reconciliation is reconciliation at all. I cannot predict
what you will think but it would not be inconsistent with your long email
[about 4300 words compared to 11,500 in the introduction] for you to think that
the following is not a reconciliation. From the previous paragraphs, however,
the reconciliation is close to obvious: that the truth of the Bible is
necessarily obtains i.e. is realized in countless cosmological systems. Hence
the claim in Foundation, ‘Jesus Christ has risen from the dead’ is true
in countless cosmological systems. This assertion must be qualified by
requirements of consistency which include the following kinds. The first is
that the Bible should contain no essential internal contradiction that could
not be removed without an essential change in meaning. Secondly, the meanings
of some symbols (words) may require modification to account for realization in
countless distinct regions including, in some cases, the universe itself. It is
conceivable that the second requirement may have implications for the Biblical
text and or for what the truth of the Bible is

The idea that a suitable extract of the truth, the moral
message, would not be a reconciliation with the material truth but might be so
with the moral truth – unless the moral truth were essentially tied in to the
material truth [and I’m not sure what your position on that is.] There is an
essential way in which moral truth is tied into the truth of the way the world
is. ‘The truth shall set you free.’ It is significant whether there was a
rising from the dead and whether rising from the dead is possible. The
individual is freer in a world where ‘normal reality’ is an approximation to
the truth

Perhaps there is no reconciliation. It may be your position –I
am not sure– that the literal truth of the Bible holds in the one universe as
described in the Bible. That there is one cosmological system –this one– and
that reference to countless systems is incoherent. However, the following is
true. We have both abandoned earlier paradigms of thought and belief in search
of truth

The THEORY OF BEING,
as developed above and in Foundation, does say something about the question of
beauty. Given sentience, it follows from the conditions of existence and of
becoming that there will be positive and negative elements in sentience. Some
positive elements are labeled beauty. This idea can be developed further from
the theory of free vs. bound and inner vs. outer elements of sentience in Foundation and other documents. This shows a necessity to the
origin of beauty and the fact that beauty –the beautiful– will have form but
does not address the actual form. This is analogous to an explanation of the
origin of structure that does not tell us what the actual structures are. But
why is there sentience? It is a mistake to demand that theory explain the
origin of sentience. Instead, one observes the empirical fact that there is
sentience. I.e. sentience is a label for experience. Then: what is actual is
possible and what is possible is materially necessary. Thus there will be
sentience in countless though not necessarily all cosmological systems. There
is a different line of argument in Foundation that concludes that sentience –of some kind– is
as universal as existence but that argument is not as clear cut as the one here

The argument regarding evidence is interesting. It is not my
intent to contradict what you said – what you said about that because I don’t
see any. The Scottish philosopher Hume was critical of the philosophical
attitudes toward science of his time and the belief in various categories of
thought especially causation. He said that we cannot logically conclude
causation from the fact that we see things occurring in series. You are acutely
familiar with his logic. What is the next term in the sequence 1, 2, 4, 8…? The
‘obvious’ suggestion is 16, but as you know there is an infinity of functions
on the reals that fit any finite or infinite series. In this way, Hume
criticized the necessity of science because the number of observations is
always finite; he also criticized the necessity of concepts such as causation
because one cannot argue from the repeated observation of a sequence to the
necessity of the sequence. Philosophers from Kant to Popper and Kuhn have
addressed the issue. Here is my simple thinking. We live in a structured phase
of the universe and the discoveries of science apply within that phase. As
science progresses the extent of the phase [contained within the outer
boundaries of extension, duration and the inner boundaries of the micro-world…]
that comes under science grows but the phase remains a ‘speck of infinity.’
That nothing can be concluded (empirically) regarding the entire universe –but
we may through reason be able to conclude something about the possible
phase-epochs in addition to the one in which we live– is equivalent to the
equivalence between the void and all being. One consequence is another way to
see the reconciliation of a previous paragraph but that would continue to be
subject to any objections or doubts that may have been raised earlier

[That no empirical conclusions can be made from data to laws
requires qualification. From the fact that there is data, we conclude that
there is being or existence here and now and, therefore, generally that being
is possible. That there is being is not so much a conclusion as a recognition
of what is in the nature of ‘existence.’ That no empirical conclusion from data
can be made would not imply that no knowledge can be had. Thus, in the (my) THEORY OF BEING, we make a number of
conclusions including the necessity of being]

[The following comment on Hume is an aside. It is interesting
that Hume has been interpreted as justifying positivism, especially scientific
positivism. Positivism is the view that the only true knowledge is positive or
empirical knowledge. According to scientific positivism, science is the only
way in which such knowledge may be obtained. From the previous paragraph, it is
hard to see how Hume could be thought to have provided a direct justification
for positivism. However, there is a way in which Hume’s work may be taken as an
indirect justification for scientific positivism. Hume was critical of all
claims to knowledge. He was especially critical of claims that the categories
of our thought are the categories of nature. That we see causation in nature
does not imply that there is causation in nature. Of course, this is obvious.
Hume’s arguments were important because they went against the prevailing
attitudes toward science i.e. that space, time and causation are indeed among
the categories of nature. These attitudes had arisen, at least partly, because
of the immense success of the Newtonian paradigm. That is not to say that Hume
was the only critic of the paradigm. The poet William Blake hated the Newtonian
world view. In addition to their timeliness, Hume’s arguments were influential
because of their forcefulness, clarity and apparent novelty at the time of their
publication. Hume’s claims, then, amount to a statement that there is little,
if any, ‘positive’ knowledge i.e. all knowledge is tinged with doubt. In
addition to his criticisms of beliefs and attitudes regarding science, Hume was
immensely critical of metaphysics which may be thought of as the study of ‘all
being.’ Although Hume was critical of science as positive knowledge, it is
acknowledged that science attempts to have a basis in the empirical. Therefore,
Hume may be interpreted as saying that if there is any positive knowledge it is
certainly not in metaphysics and, by default, it must be in science. I don’t
think that Hume actually said this. However, I do think he was willing to trust
science as the only paradigm of knowledge but not as a positive paradigm.
Certainly, Hume did not say that scientific knowledge is positive – as noted,
he argued against this. However, it is easy to see how scientists and
philosophers struggling to show that there is positive knowledge or that
scientific knowledge is positive may have thought they found support in Hume’s
writing according to which philosophical metaphysics and the scriptures were
not knowledge at all. Firstly, there is a tendency to interpret ‘if there is
positive knowledge, it is only in science’ as ‘science is positive knowledge,’
especially if one feels the need to justify or to have faith in science. I
assume that there must have been a desire to have such faith because of the
success of science and that without such faith it would seem that the new
paradigm was shaky… and because, unlike the existentialists of a later era, men
and women were used to having faith in something and the something, i.e. faith
based in religion, was being threatened by the conflict with science. Although
the great conflict did not come until Darwin’s theory of
evolution, many thinkers from the time of Newton on found,
in science, a reason to doubt their religious faith. The final motive to the
appeal to Hume may have been due to the extent of his influence. Hume’s critiques
were thought to have devastated the underpinnings of much of philosophy, faith
and science to such an extent that Kant found it necessary to expound his
‘transcendental idealism’ (partially) in response to Hume]

I appreciate your self-disclosure. I recall your powers of
persuasion, exposition and logic in teaching applied mathematics and see those
same powers come into play in your exposition of what may be called ‘Biblical
theory.’ Personal experience –the very real or apparently real data that constitutes
the bedrock and the symbols which constitute our world views– is also
important. I have not had the kinds of personal experience that you have had
–the miracles that happen and happened in the presence of Yisraela– and
therefore, probably, the truth of the Bible does not have the force for me that
it has for you. [It seems to me that a miracle cannot be the occurrence of the
impossible but the occurrence of what is thought to be impossible.]
However, it is true that I see and feel a certain truth and power in the Bible
and, it is an essential part of who I am and of the [my] journey to remain open
to the possibility of personal experience. This is where I want to go next – to
experience rather than think the reality of my vision. What I seek is personal experience
of my truth –which means my truth so far– but I do not know where that seeking
will lead me. I haven’t responded explicitly to the details of your personal
history but your account contains power and I carry it with me as something
positive whose full power may be revealed to me at some future time. The
Biblical account is rich in human appeal and history and my account is rather
abstract and bare of immediate human contact – I think I am being a little
unfair to myself but that is good because it is a spur to improvement. The
Bible is ‘ancient,’ my thought is ‘new.’ My thought is not one of competitive
opposition but, rather, ‘What mesh, what integration may be possible? What
instruction may I receive?’ Your ‘logic’ and my ‘logic’ are somewhat tangential
and, despite my attempt at alignment, the mesh is incomplete. This is good [for
me] in various ways. Already, your ‘challenge’ has wrought improvements in my
thinking – fundamental and incidental. Especially because my experience is
limited, it is extremely useful for me to be open to the experience and
thoughts of others – especially those that refine my thought and, at another
extreme, those that stand in –at least apparent– opposition to my ideas. And,
I’ve always noted that it is challenges, especially uncomfortable ones, that
bring out the best responses – provided of course that I have passion for the
issue at hand

My account is not altogether impersonal since it is interwoven
with my story. The thought arises that a novel –or myth or legend– could be
written but I am not sure that I am the best person to write it. However, I do
derive meaning from my story. It seems possible to me that any account of
higher worlds –transcendent or immanent– might make this world appear mundane.
This has not happened for me – the blue of the sky, distant horizons, forests
and mountains, human kindness, love, the beauty of men and women, the
occasional merging of truth and ego remain wonderful to me… still miraculous

[Jesus and Buddha went to nature for inspiration]

What next for my journey? Perhaps I could attempt to write a
mythic account of the journey. I have thought that it might be useful to form a
group of individuals to mutually work out my goals and ambitions. The essential
goal, however, is to work out the reality of the [my] THEORY OF BEING. There are some details in Foundation.
The goal of the theory is to address every significant issue in
metaphysics and every significant human issue. The developments so far have
realized the metaphysical goal although improvements are possible. To some
extent I could make the same assertion with ‘metaphysics’ replaced by
‘philosophy.’ The force of the ideas in the THEORY
OF BEING have acquired ‘intrinsic momentum’ and, to some extent,
replaced my ego as far as their development and application are concerned.
Thus, since the original insight of the theory it has become possible for me to
be judgmental regarding matters of fact and action though not of individuals. I
think that a broad range of human issues have been addressed but the form is
relatively abstract and I have not reviewed the range for completeness

…In view of the doubts expressed above, let me assume that the THEORY OF BEING has force but falls
short of logical necessity. What follows? I intend and want to realize the
theory in action. Although, perhaps, as discussed in Foundation,
a complete and independent symbolic knowledge is possible, I suspect that
embedded knowledge must remain interwoven with action… I probably cannot predict
what transformation will result. What will I be at the end of the Journey? The THEORY OF BEING makes it clear that
there is no absolute restriction to the kind and extent of transformation that
is possible. Although the likelihood of realizing the full extent of the theory
in action [one of two main goals of the journey] may be small, the value of a
realization is enormous. The combination [product] of the likelihood and the
value [of the journey] is significant. There is, therefore, parallel to ‘being-in-the-present’
an imperative to the search – to the experimental i.e. the transformational
phase…

I will not go into the details here. A good part of Foundation
and of Journey
in Being describe possibilities and plans for the realization [in addition
to a ‘general’ realization there are two specialized projects in (1) algorithms
and machines, and (2) group or social action]

I end with caring and an expression of appreciation for our
‘occasional’ friendship over the years

Even if you have looked at it, you might look
again because I uploaded a new version last night

Sincerely,

Anil

11.25.2004

Hi Anil,

I did go to the web address that you gave.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. If I may make one observation about your
reply, I think you said in it that both Jesus and Buddha went to nature for
their inspiration. I understand that that reflects your belief that Jesus did
not create the universe, for if he did then it wouldn’t be reasonable to say
that the creator of nature found inspiration in his creation. A few years ago
an Indian grad student joined our home-Bible-study group, and at the end said
that he now felt comfortable as to how Jesus fit into his (Hindu)
understanding. I found it remarkable that he could have so missed the point,
because we had studied the claims so thoroughly. I would say to the contrary
that Jesus doesn’t fit into anything, he is the “singularity”, the only God,
and the only path to redemption - only by his blood are my sins atoned and only
under the cover of his hanging on the cross, an innocent substitute, the one
who voluntarily paid my parking ticket, am I now able to be in relationship
with him.

Perhaps the parting question might be this: IF
the things I’ve said are true, then would you “want them”? If not, then there’d
be no point in proceeding any further along this line. But if you would, then
I’d suggest as a first reading the book of JOHN - his gospel account which is
the fourth book of the New Testament. If you like, you could speak to the Lord
first and ask him to remove any veil from your eyes so that you could discern
the truth - or whatever you would ask of him.

Meanwhile, wishing you well...

M.

11.25.2004

Hi Michael,

I’m off to work... will read and reply
[briefly, I hope] later One reaction, if something is true - or if I believe it
to be true - then, of course, that is what it is most rational to want. And it
is irrational, though not outside human ‘nature’ to not want it or to want it
not

Warm Thoughts,

Anil

Arcata, December 1, 2004

Hi Michael,

Before I
first contacted you this fall, I had looked at my bookshelves and asked myself
which books I considered ‘fundamental.’ I.e. which books might illuminate ‘The
Journey?’ I looked at the math, engineering and physics books – I have given
away about 2000 books of all kinds; about three hundred remain and of these,
about a hundred are technical. The technical books did not call out to me.
Neither did the books on philosophy –even though they may continue to be
useful– except, perhaps, the writings of Plato. Mostly, I selected books on
travel and the outdoors – not, of course, because travel books are profound but
because I want to travel. I selected a book on meditation because I want to
meditate. I selected two ‘scriptures’ of which one was the Bible. I have these
books in my truck so that I can read them whenever I want to

When I read
the Bible, I will go, first, as a result of your suggestion, to JOHN

Regarding
Jesus’ ‘inspiration,’ my point was that nature is inspiring and that this is
found in many stories of inspiration from ancient myth to modern science. I too
have found much inspiration in nature and the point is not in a comparison of
my life with that of others but a statement of the significance of nature, i.e.
hiking and spending time in remote ‘uncivilized’ places. I was not thinking of
the possible logical consequence of my thought. Regarding the logical point,
there appear to be difficulties when one considers the logic of unqualified use
of ‘all’ or ‘nothing.’ These are difficulties that I have to address and or
live with in my ‘THEORY OF BEING.’
If, e.g., ‘everything’ seeks inspiration where or in what does it do so? If it
cannot seek inspiration within itself then it cannot seek inspiration at all.
Does this imply that the net inspiration of ‘everything or non-thing’ is zero?

The example
of the Indian graduate student is interesting. I said in an earlier note that
‘It has been said that Hinduism is an umbrella for all kinds of beliefs.’ If a
formal system that includes all belief is entertained, it will undoubtedly
contain paradox. Then, for all statements A,
both Aand NOT-Aare true. In a sense, then, everything
is true and nothing is true. Where does that place one? Regardless, it is
possible to see how the Indian graduate student may have seen how the Christian
faith fit into his own Hinduism – even if there are logic errors attached to
the ‘fit.’ Of course, I do not know that that was the framework of the graduate
student. Where does that place a faith that contains errors of logic? It is
interesting that even in mathematics, the possibility of paradox is permitted
in some fields because the richness of the results is too much to forego.
Whether an individual mathematician chooses to work in such a field or to
eschew it due to, e.g. purism, is a function of individual psychology.
Regarding faith, if its content is its ‘meaning’ then reality resides in the
individual and not every article of faith and the individual finds inspiration
rather than reality in faith. This does not mean that there are no individual
articles of faith that are true

As I have
said, I do hold the Bible as truth but not the only truth. Early in life, I
came up with ‘proofs’ that ‘God’ did not exist; I did not hold religious
scriptures to be true. Later, I came to doubt my earlier convictions. I sought
disproofs of my early convictions but did not come up with anything
satisfactory. Still later, I came to intuit what was a primitive form of my THEORY OF BEING. I lived in this
intuitive epistemic state (regarding being) until I arrived at the THEORY OF BEING. According to the THEORY OF BEING what is
non-contradictory is possible and what is possible is materially necessary i.e.
must obtain at infinitely many occasions. Thus, excepting contradictions, if
any, the Bible must have truth but not the only significant truth. Further, as
far as may be concluded from the GENERAL THEORY OF BEING, the density of the
distribution of the ‘infinitely many occasions’ of the literal truth of any
concrete scripture relative to ALL
OCCASIONS is thin. I know you may see that as untrue but it is what
I see [my] logic as requiring. So, in addition to its native appeal, I should
read the Bible in order to see what implications it may have for the logic. The
journey has a number of paths –writings to read, experiences to have– and I do
not know where it will lead, what will be the outcome, for me, of the different
‘truths’

I see four
significant possibilities regarding faith: atheism or having no belief;
agnosticism or a state of suspended judgment pending logic or revelation;
theism – a state of judgment regarding the possibilities i.e. a selection of a
system of faith; and liberalism, an open state of perception in which belief is
the sum of all truths, or, rather, is on the path to that sum. The last is like
quantum superposition states in which systems can be simultaneously ‘up’ and
‘down’

I have a
number of questions whose answers might help me. They are not disingenuous even
if naïve and their purpose is to assist my understanding of the Christian Faith

Does Jesus
expect reverence and why? Is reverence a good thing?

Is it
possible that he might choose to meet and talk to a modern human being in
person? Is there anything one can do to increase the possibility of that
happening?

Is it
necessary to read the Bible to understand the truth … meaning: might Jesus
choose to reveal the truth through his person rather than the word?

Although I
understand the reasoning and experience that is the foundation of the Christian
Faith, I do not see how the Bible stands together as an INTEGRAL DOCUMENT in the sense that
if it did so stand, its truth would then be manifest and it would not be
necessary to verify every part of the Bible independently! How may the
systematic or necessary truth, rather than merely empirical truth, of the Bible
as an integral document be seen?